FEW reminds lawmakers: Feds are your constituents

Federally Employed Women (FEW) has released its annual compilation of federal employment and retiree statistics by state and congressional district—and urges federal lawmakers to take note.

“These statistics are very important to legislators and their staffs on Capitol Hill so that they will know how many federal workers and retirees are employed and live in their state and district,” FEW National President Michelle Crockett said in a statement.

“The most important fact is that every legislator has federal workers, retirees and postal workers employed and/or living in their district," she said. "So the next time lawmakers consider cutting benefits for federal workers or retirees, let them remember that they are referring to their own constituents’ livelihoods.”

In addition to making 2014 county-level data for all congressional districts available online via an interactive map, FEW also is hand-delivering the totals for each district to every legislator’s office.

Overall, FEW said, individuals reflected in the data include 1.997 million federal workers, 588,153 postal workers and 2.51 million federal retirees. The numbers—which also are broken out by agency—were compiled from data from the Office of Personnel Management and the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment.

The statistics present the federal employee totals according to where those employees actually work; and retiree totals by where those retirees live.

“While it would be preferable to have all the data reflect where people live, this is not yet available,” said FEW’s Washington representative, Janet Kopenhaver.

“However, we believe that outside the Beltway, federal workers tend to live and work in the same congressional district," she added. "Additionally, they are still contributing heavily to that district by buying lunch, shopping and paying taxes where they work.”